The not-for-profit Operation Respond Institute Inc. recently announced the release of Version 6.0 of OREIS, its software tool providing real-time information from the railway and trucking industry to help responders know precisely what they’re dealing with in a transportation emergency.

The latest version of OREIS was in the mail Tuesday to some 4,500 sites across the nation where it is already installed, said Daniel M. Collins, president of Operation Respond. With good saturation of major metropolitan areas and locations with major railway and trucking hubs, the Washington-based organization is now turning its attention to getting more responders from rural America on board, Collins said.

Since 1995, with funding from the Department of Transportation and more recently from the Department of Homeland Security, Operation Respond has been developing the tools and technology to give first responders life-saving information for response to hazmat incidents involving the railways and the trucking industry.

OREIS (short for Operation Respond Emergency Information System) software provides information in real-time about the hazardous materials contained in rail cars and motor carrier trailers involved in accidents. The system, which imports information about hazmat materials en route from the transportation industry, also offers response guidance for approaching specific hazardous materials involved in accidents as well as schematics of the cars or tank trucks involved.

Every major freight railroad in the United States and Canada participates in OREIS including the recent addition of the Alaska Railroad. Amtrak and VIA Rail Canada as well as several large commuter rail operators and some short line railroads are in the system.

For the trucking industry, Operation Respond is working on integrations with firms offering satellite and cell-phone tracking capabilities, such as Qualcomm Inc. Qualcomm is the leading provider of a satellite-based vehicle tracking systems for the trucking industry. It currently monitors about 300,000 trucks moving across the roadways every day, Collins said, serving about 75% of the long-haul trucking market.

OREIS is by no means intended to replace the placarding system used to identify hazardous materials contained in railcars and trucks, Collins emphasizes. First responders need multiple verifications of what they’re dealing with to organize their response. The software provides placard and UN ID guides as well as the Coast Guard’s Chris Database, American Railroad’s Chemical List and NIOSH’s Target Organs Guide.

OREIS users also become part of a network operated by the Emergency Services Information Network Corp. that allows them to receive emergency notifications, alerts and messages via e-mail from federal and local governments, transportation carriers and Operation Respond.

New Features

Collins said OREIS Version 6.0 has beefed-up security measures to make sure information about hazardous materials on the roadways and railways doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. V-One, the company that provides a secure virtual private network for the FBI, now provides the same services for Operation Respond and its communications to OREIS users.

Other new features include new biochem and weapons of mass destruction databases, Collins said. “We’ve also improved the schematics from the passenger carrying railway companies to develop what I would call more law-enforcement-specific applications.”

Operation Respond is working to incorporate several new capabilities in the software. GIS mapping and high-resolution and overhead imagery are being incorporated into the railway picture to help responders pinpoint the exact location of a train in distress and identify the best route to it, according to Dr. James W. Boone, executive vice president of Operation Respond. “Working together with Amtrak, a project funded by DHS is getting the 457-mile Northeast Corridor, from Washington, D.C, to Boston, through New York, online with these enhanced street maps and images before the Republican and Democratic national conventions in the fall.

“We will make all this available to DHS, Amtrak Police and key response agencies along the Northeast Corridor in time for the conventions,” Boone said. “We are grateful that the Department of Homeland Security is providing funding to help us increase the scope and importance of the whole project.”

A direct messaging system from trucks on Qualcomm’s satellite vehicle-tracking system to OREIS users is in the works. If all goes as planned, OREIS users in Alaska, Kentucky and Nevada may soon be hooked up so that if a truck with the tracking system has an incident, Qualcomm can message that information to Operation Respond, which then passes the information on the location of the truck, its situation and its contents through its network to first responders before they arrive on scene.

Hazardous materials information from port authorities is coming soon, Collins said. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has already begun uploading information to Operation Respond’s server every 30 minutes. “It’s a lot of information,” said Collins. “We’re working to decipher what’s important and what isn’t and how it should be presented on a screen when an incident happens. We’re in the design phase of that right now.”

A great deal of credit is due to companies in shipping and transportation, which have opened their doors to provide better information to emergency responders. “They know what’s in their trucks and they know what’s in their tank cars, and they’re confident enough in Operation Respond to allow us to be the means to provide that information to police and firefighters. We just become a conduit to do that, and we do it in a secure fashion so that the wrong people can’t get their hands on this data,” said Collins.

Reaching Rural America

Up until now, Operation Respond has focused primarily on getting OREIS installed in urban areas and locations with big rail yards and trucking hubs. But railway and trucking accidents occur everywhere in America. Rural departments need this tool, too.

The International Association of Fire Chiefs, which helped lobby for funding from DOT to distribute OREIS for free to the emergency response community, is now working to help get more rural communities into the program. Operation Respond and the IAFC will launch a campaign next week in Kentucky to reach out to rural fire chiefs at the Center for Rural Development in Somerset. “We’re going to have the chiefs from 42 counties in eastern Kentucky reviewing all that we do and giving us input as to what we can do better to help rural responders,” Collins said, “both in terms of dealing with these incidents and also from a security point of view.”

The software is available to fire, rescue, EMS and law enforcement organizations, but the organization must verify that the people who have access to OREIS have had a background check. Because background checks aren’t always common procedure in small fire and rescue departments, one approach to overcome the problem is to have the software installed in 911 centers, which then pass the information via radio or phone to first responders as they’re being dispatched.

But if your department has background-check capability, it can request its own set of the software. “If they have a hazmat vehicle or if they have a regional hazmat vehicle, it can be installed on it, because I know that in a lot of these areas they share things,” said Collins.

Operation Respond hopes to reach 8,000 installations by the end of the year. With the excitement from Version 6.0, and support from such organizations as the IAFC and DHS, it’s a good bet it will get there.

Data continues to increase from the shipping and transportation industry every day. These companies realize that providing better information makes a better emergency response and a safer one for the people arriving on scene. “The last thing that anybody wants is for the first responder to be the first victim,” Boone said. “As a result, there’s a common bond between the employees of these companies and the fire and rescue people. That common bond is they all return home safely.”

Information on installing and training for first responders is included on the OREIS software. An online tutorial is scheduled to be available soon.

For more information or to request OREIS 6.0, visit the Operation Respond Institute’s Web site at www.oreis.org or call 202-548-0935.